[WarInEur] Kursk, and its aftermath

[sgminfo]

Whilst we have been experimenting with bringing the game onwards to 
fruition,
I had cause to play the 1943 scenario once again.

Instead of launching the tanks forward as the scenario is cast...

It suddenly struck me,
as operational commander,
with the tools I had at my disposal,
what it was I was trying to achieve....


The more I looked at the scenario the greater was my disquiet and curiosity.

In the scenario,
my strategic posture for a major offensive in the east
simply did not make any sense.

1.I had no operational backup for any sort of offensive.

If I were launching an offensive,
one thing I would be assuring myself of,
is a reasonable workshop repair and refit base,
and spares to cover breakdown, and battle damage,
for the Panzer crews at the cutting edge.

In the game, I look round,
only to find I have no repair/refit capability,
namely no IRs and MRs.

When you examine the crt and the tactical position,

The panzers have no realistic probability that caters for success.

With the given CRT,
any sort of tank losses result in defeat.

Any exchange is effectively an attacker eliminated for the German strike 
force,
for with no MRs you are completely out on a limb.

The crt is also suspect...

Modern research seems to give indications that the crt may be completely 
out of joint.

See some of the analysis work post the research contemporary with the 
game...

http://www.chsk.com/steppenwolf/tiger1_in_action_2.htm



This is not a Panzer pushing argument, or an apology for one.

But it leads me to query some assumptions that we are all holding on the 
Kursh scenario,
and the fighting model we all sign up to in the game....


Are the 1943 German capabilities based on faulty/mistaken scholarship?

Or did SPI slant the scenario for some reasons we do not see.
(My money is on the former)
An attempt at accurate portrayal based on the best information of the 
time...which was sadly, and unkowingly at the time, significantly deficient?


If I were casting a Kursk simulation...
I would perhaps give the Germans the capacity to maintain their armour 
strength through the early summer of 1943, with say an armoured reserve 
of 3-5MRs and a similar number of IRs.

Anything less would seem to make any offensive in the east a non starter.


Most generalisations of the post war period seem to say, that the 
Germans drew down their last reserves in the offensive at Kursk, yet in 
the scenario as set out, they have, it would seem, already  expended them.

The abovementioned research would seem to indicate otherwise...
either the Germans were not suffering the losses we thought,
or there was a fair amount of replacement and refitting going on 
throughout the period?


-|steve|-